


Memories To Last

by Sachi_Grace



Series: A Place For Us [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied miscarriage, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Miscarriage, owamiki week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24194146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sachi_Grace/pseuds/Sachi_Grace
Summary: Day 4: Angst/Soulmate-AuThey said that high school romances didn't last long, and that they were lucky to have lasted as long as they did.Mikan's thoughts from the start of her relationship with Mondo to the inevitable ending.
Relationships: Oowada Mondo/Tsumiki Mikan
Series: A Place For Us [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1741843
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Memories To Last

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much OwaMiki Week 2020 for hosting this event. Please be mindful of the tags as this prompt did suggest angst and I kicked it up a few notches than some would want me to. I know I glossed over a lot of what was happening, but I was very late and I will probably polish this up when I get a chance to actually work on it with my full attention. Thank you so much for your kudos, subscriptions, comments, bookmarks and hits. They're all so sweet.

They said that high school romances don’t last long, and that they were lucky to have lasted for as long as they did. Mikan supposed that was an accurate assumption, as most high school romances did die after graduation. After the initial rebelling against fate and the words that were etched on everyone’s skin, they would unintentionally find their soulmate as they went out into the world. The statistics of finding one’s soulmate in a high school setting was astronomically low. 

She had met hers in the courtyard during lunch. Mahiru, Ibuki, and Hiyori were waiting for her underneath a shaded tree. Mikan had been trying to restock the nurse’s office, as it was her Ultimate and she was shadowing the former Ultimate School Nurse to practice her talent. Today the Nurse was absent, and Mikan had been allowed to miss school until she came back in order to practice and take care of the students. Mikan didn’t doubt that it was an early practical test since taking care of real patients would determine more than a dummy would. 

She was going to have to eat lunch quickly and go back to her job so that if someone got sick or hurt, they would be able to find her. She rushed out of the school and without looking where she was going, slammed herself into a hard wall that made her fall to the ground, hitting her rump and lower back. 

“Shit are ya okay?” She opened her watering eyes to see a hand being held out to her, and a tough-looking gangster standing above her. Her eyes widened in fear before she scrambled up, ignoring the burning on her right forearm as she got onto her feet. She missed the scarred words turning red in acknowledgement until much later that day.

“I-I’m o-okay. I’m so so-sorry!” Mikan apologized profusely. “P-please let me g-go.” Before he could say anything, she grabbed her things and ran away from him. 

It would take days before she would speak to him again. She knew that he was her soulmate, and she felt so ashamed of herself for just running. Of course she would get someone terrifying as a soulmate. Of course it was going to be someone that would probably hurt her. She knew that soulmates were supposed to be good for each other, and that they were supposed to bring out the best in each other, but...she wasn’t sure about this. Gang members never were kind and they were always in dangerous situations. Mikan didn’t want any trouble. She just wanted him to stay as far away from her as possible.

Mikan now would roll her eyes at the teenager that she was. It took Mondo coming into the nurse’s office with a good gash on his head, bleeding and bruised. As if he had just come out from a scrap. She nearly toppled over her supplies in shock when she saw him, bent over against the frame of the door. Both of each other looked, and the scary-looking bike leader was about to leave.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Mikan called out after him, getting to his side and grabbing his arm. “You need to rest and that cut looks dangerous. You need to sit down.”

“Ya don’ want anythin’ to do with me.” Mondo said gruffly. “I can handle it myself.”

“Now’s really not the time to put on a tough guy act.” Mikan panicked. Head injuries were no laughing matter. The slightest bump could be fatal if it was hit in the right place. She dragged him over towards a bed and made him sit down. “I’m going to ask you some questions now and I need to be honest with me and tell me what you think the answer is.”

“What is this a fuckin’ math test?” Mondo asked, his voice raising a little. Mikan flinched, but she had a feeling that he was worried about his own memory. What kind of signs he’d show. 

“Please?!” Mikan wasn’t above begging. “Please. I’ll do anything if you’ll just answer.” Wrong choice of words, but...it got him to stop and clamp his mouth shut. “What’s your name?”

“Mondo Oowada. Nice to fuckin’ meet you I guess.”

“Oowada-san.” Mikan said slowly, “I’m Mikan Tsumiki. It is nice to meet you too. Do you remember what day it is?”

“It’s a monday ain’t it?” Another raised pitch, he didn’t like being unsure of himself. 

“Good, but I was looking for a date.” Mikan prompted as she started to wash the wound. It was a shallow cut, nothing that would need stitches, but it liked to bleed. “Can you tell me that?”

“....Not really.”

“Okay. We can work with that. What’s the capital of Japan?”

“Tokyo. Obviously.”

“Where do you go to school?”

“Hope’s Peak Academy. Am I in the clear, nurse?” Mondo asked gruffly.

“You’re in the clear.” Mikan assured him as she finished putting the bandage on his head. She was grateful for no lasting damage, but she really hoped this wasn’t going to be a common occurrence. She fidgeted with her hands and she felt her throat tighten. She couldn’t let him leave without knowing how serious this was. “I-if you start feeling bad you need to come back here or go to the hospital. Headaches are probably going to be common, but if you start to get a migraine that doesn’t go away after a few hours, or if your stomach starts to get upset, then you want to consider emergency action. You need to have someone watch for you as you recover.”

“That’s it?” Mondo grinned. “Hell yeah. I was expectin’ somethin’ far worse than that! Thanks, doll.”

“Do-doll?!” Mikan stared at him before she remembered that a) this was her soulmate and b) she was going to have to get used to whatever pet name he gave her. “O-oh. Yo-you’re not upset wi-with me then?”

“Upset with you?” Mondo stared at her for a long moment before he looked away. “Look, I probably scared you when I asked if you were okay. I didn’t mean for my voice to get that loud and I was a bit nervous. Sorry.”

“N-no. I do-don’t blame you fo-for getting upset.” Mikan looked away, fidgeting. “Yo-you probably wo-would be an-angry that your soul-soulmate was a clutz li-like me. I do-don’t blame you for ha-hating me.”

“What the fuck?” Mondo looked up at her and Mikan bit her lower lip nervously. “Who the fuck am I punchin’?”

“Huh?!” Mikan immediately got worried. “No, you are not punching anyone! You ju-just got out of a fi-fight! You nee-need to rest more than, more than anything right now!” 

“No one should be sayin’ shit like that to you. Jesus Christ if I find out you’re-”

Mikan wasn’t sure if she should be touched with the fact that he was willing to fight someone on her behalf despite just meeting her and knowing tha she was his soulmate, or be worried that it was his first response. “I-it’s no big deal.” She assured. “Ri-right now you sho-shouldn’t be punching an-anyone. If you are I’m, uh, I’m going to b-be really m-mad at you.”

They both kept a look at each other and Mikan wanted to hide underneath a table or apologize. He was injured though, and she needed to stay on somewhat of a firm foot. He couldn’t jeopardize his health like that. Finally he looked away and got himself up. “I’ll keep an eye out on my injuries.” He said after a moment. “Thanks for lookin’ out for me Mikan.”

“An-anytime Oowada-san.”

“Mondo. Call me Mondo.”

It was supposed to be the end of that, but they continued to run into each other after that. Mikan was too worried about him to let him go, and he kept getting hurt every other week. Nagito would call it the best luck ever to have hit her and most of her classmates would agree. Of course, with Nagito’s superstition about his luck, whatever good happens, bad wasn’t too far behind. 

Of course all relationships had their ups and their downs, Mikan wouldn’t say that Mondo’s and hers was anything that was sweet and perfect. They fought. He was stubborn, she was a worry-wart, they both argued on the occasion about her getting hurt and her friends and in turn they’d argue about him and his bike riding and the fights that he would get himself into. He gave her more than enough heart attacks throughout high school, and the one time she wound up in the hospital herself made him snap.

“You’re comin’ home with me.” He said when he sat down next to her. The machines next to her beeped insistently. She had small gifts on her bedside table. If anyone wasn’t familiar with Mondo, they would’ve thought that he was trying to intimidate her with how close his chair was to her bed and how he sat, ready to get up on his feet and knock someone’s light’s out. His hands were already balled into fists, hanging on his lap. His expression is too serious to take lightly. 

Mikan didn’t have the heart or the energy to argue with him this time. She was lucky to have been able to crawl to the telephone and ask for the ambulance. She was used to being tortured and made fun of. She was used to having her hair pulled and yanked around. She was used to getting slammed into walls and being looked at. Being used in more ways than one. She deserved every little bit of it, she believed. Yet this time...this time she knew that they crossed the line. She broke her arm down the stairs and she couldn’t walk. She knew she tore something inside of her and she was right. 

As much as they hated her now, they were under arrest and the kit was done and the evidence was gathered. Mondo must’ve heard that she was stuck here through the grapevine. She didn’t doubt that Mahiru or Peko might’ve had an idea of what was going on. Peko considered that she was part of the yakuza and listened in on police scanners. Mahiru because if she was absent for anything, it was because she wasn’t in great shape. 

“O-okay.” Mikan murmured. “I’m so-sorry.”

“Not this time, nurse.” Mondo assured. “Nothin’ to be sorry. We’ll get it right.”

She still had no idea what that meant, but she could understand the implication. Mikan gathered what little she had and she did move in with the Ooada family and she had to learn fast to get used to loud voices. Every single one of them were loud. Yelling was a common household theme. 

They did their best to soften around her and they did their best to make sure that they weren’t overly obnoxious, but there were times where she heard Mondo’s mother knock a couple pans out of the way and made her flinch, and where she heard Mondo and his mother talk as though they were arguing when in reality it was just another conversation. 

Mikan brought her hands together and rubbed them against her forehead, trying to keep her heart from breaking further at the memories that were playing through her mind. Their first date. Their first kiss. The first time he called her “babe”. The moment he proposed to her and married her. 

“What do ya think of kids?” 

Mikan was trying to help wash dishes and hadn’t expected the question. The plate slipped out of her fingers dropped back into the soapy water, splashing at her mercilessly. Mondo laughed and she let out a sharp whine giving him a look. “Yo-you did that on pu-purpose!” She was getting better at trying to bicker with him. It was how he showed he was close to people and it didn’t do her any good to apologize with a head bowed low. He inspired her to be confident, and in turn their apartment wasn’t filled with banging doors and softer expressions of affection.

“Nah. I was actually just curious. I was just thinkin’ about it and was wondering your thoughts. Not expectin’ an answer though. I’m damn happy to be where I am now. No pressure.”

“Kids.” Mikan mused as she reached for the plate and started to scrub it again. She let her mind wander as she tried to picture the family. It would have to be a big one, Mondo wasn’t the type that would go for just one. If he was then that would be a surprise. She thought about where they were in their lives. Mikan worked extremely long hours and she barely got to be home. Mondo worked as a carpenter, but still rode his bike on occasion with his gang since they got married. Between the two of them they made enough to be comfortable, and it’d stay like that if they had one or two. “I…” She trailed off. “Maybe.” She said in answer.

“Again there’s really no fuckin’ pressure.” Mondo looked at her. “I’m happy as we are.”

“Y-yes, but…” Mikan trailed off. “I do wan-want to be a mot-mother. I ju-just don’t kno-know how good of one I-I’d be. W-we could d-do it if w-we wanted to.”

“I get it.” Mondo said quietly as he took the plate from her and started drying it. Mikan panicked a little inwardly, trying to think of where she might’ve gone wrong in her statement. “I don’t know how good of a father I’d be. My dad ditched my mom after I was born. Mom had to raise me and Daiya by her lonesome.”

“I-I don’t thi-think you’d leave.” Mikan assured. “I-if any-anything yo-you’d stick so close t-to me we wo-would be att-attached to the hip.”

“Hell yea.” Mondo flashed her a grin. “So you in or you out?”

No pressure. Mikan smiled thoughtfully. “In.” She said, mustering all the confidence in the world to say it.

Of course that was the start of the problem wasn’t it? It was the start where everything that went wrong could go wrong. Mikan nor Mondo ever really told anyone about it. It had happened so quickly, and they were internally grateful that they both had thought to wait on announcing anything when it happened.

Mondo and Mikan threw themselves into work, but they also threw themselves together when they were able to meet again from long work hours, trying to recover from the loss. They talked here and there about trying again, but the moment always felt wrong to them both. As if they were trying to replace something that couldn’t ever be replaced. 

Now this and Mikan was devastated. She looked up from tracing the words on her arms as she looked at Mondo’s lying form in the hospital bed. It had been a wreck. She was on call for thirty six hours, and she had just barely started her shift when she was told to get off the clock and get into the waiting room. There was no way she could help, it was unethical practice and she was too emotionally attached to the patient. All she could do was pray and pray and pray…

But praying didn’t work here and his mother was sitting on the other side of him. Brain dead, they said. He was on life support, but there was no way that was going to continue. There was no way it was going to last. Mikan twisted her rings, trying to come up with something to say but she couldn’t.

How did she miss her arm turning black?

“Hey babe, me the boys are going to go on one last ride around the town.”   
  


Mikan looked up from reading and she grinned at him. It had been a hot minute since he thought about going with his friends. “B-be safe.” She told him sincerely.

“Always.” He walked behind her and gave her an upside down kiss, cupping her cheek and stroking her hair, just the way she liked before he moved off of her. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Mikan beamed.

Of course it wasn’t every day the last words spoken were going to be loving ones. She saw blackened words of hate and of ambiguity. She saw how her patient’s lovers and friends all felt remorse for the things that they said, things that they wish they could say. She was grateful that Mondo didn’t live like that. 

He lived with saying everything that he needed to say. There wasn’t a person in their friend group that could have remorse. More conversations? Of course, that would be the most common regret. More hangouts? More invites? More being around each other? Mikan knew those kinds of regrets wouldn’t sit well with the biker. 

“I-is it okay if…” Mikan let out a shuddering breath, trying to hold herself together even though she wanted to burst into tears. Later. She could fall apart later. “If I...called his friends? L...let t-them-”

“Of course.” Her mother in law said quietly. It was the first time and the only time Mikan ever heard her talk so soft. As though she was afraid that she was going to wake Mondo up. Mikan wanted to assure her that Mondo could sleep through anything, but...that was the point now. She stumbled upwards and went into the hallway. 

She didn’t go to the phone at first, she went straight to the bathroom and turned on the faucet as loud as she could get it. She burst into tears and collapsed onto her knees. She as all alone. She was going to be all alone. She wasn’t going to go to the apartment and see him. She wasn’t going to hear him yell for her across the apartment. They weren’t going to bicker over little things like dinner plans and dates. They weren’t going to cuddle on the couch and watch something stupid on the television. They weren’t going to….

She cried until her heart couldn’t take it and her stomach hurt. She cried until her body ached and she just wanted to go home and wrap herself in a blanket. She wanted to pretend that this was all a bad dream and that he was going to be at the apartment. This was just a nightmare and she was going to wake up. 

She was going to wake up?

She stood on wobbling legs and she held herself steady on the sink. Her face was splotchy and her eyes were swollen and red. She looked like a mess and she couldn't bring herself to apologize for it. Not even to her reflection. She turned the water off, not needing it anymore to hide her sobbing and crying. She tried to find a way to pull herself together, but every time she thought she stitched herself up correctly she wanted to fall apart again.

She needed to call his friends.

Taka

Makoto.

She needed to call them especially. She stumbled out of the bathroom and headed towards the phones. She apologized over and over again, her voice breaking. She couldn’t remember exactly what she said, or what she was told...but she knew that the message got across and…

Taka was there within an instant. She knew it took him much longer than that, but he was there within a good few minutes. Makoto wasn’t far behind. It...was hard to be there with them. Taka was unashamed in his emotions and she burst back into tears as he cried. They both hugged each other, trying desperately to comfort each other but at the same time understanding that the loss was going to be inevitable. Makoto also shed tears, and was dragged into a hug as well. 

They tried to swap stories, share memories, but it was raw. Mikan felt like it was poking at a bruise that had yet to heal, still fresh. She thought about him in the nurse's office and all the times in between with wounds and a smile. He was bulletproof until he wasn’t anymore.

She went back to her apartment soon afterwards, unable to keep her eyes open and knowing she needed the strength for what would come next. The plans, the goodbyes, the event. Mondo would want all of his friends there, his ex-gang. They undoubtedly felt ashamed for what had happened, and she couldn’t...bring herself to hate them. It was easier to forgive. 

She sat on the bed, trying to keep herself together but knowing that she was going to fall apart. She was alone. The apartment felt empty and devoid of life. She rubbed her arm again, tracing the black words as she tried to keep her sanity. The only positive thought that went through her mind was what her friends had told her a long time ago. That high school romances didn’t last long, and that they were lucky to have lasted as long as they did. 

  
  
  



End file.
